The Senate Appropriations Committee voted 31-0 Thursday to advance to the floor its Financial Services FY 2020 budget bill. The measure, which the Financial Services Subcommittee cleared Tuesday, would allocate $339 million to the FCC and its Office of Inspector General and $312.3 million to the FTC (see 1909170060). The House-passed equivalent (HR-3351) allocated the FCC the same funding level but gave the FTC $349.7 million -- $37 million more than Senate Appropriations proposes. The House, meanwhile, voted 301-123 Thursday for a continuing resolution to extend the federal government's funding through Nov. 21. It's a bid to avert a government shutdown at the end of this month. The measure needs Senate approval.

The Senate Appropriations Committee voted 31-0 Thursday to advance to the floor its Financial Services FY 2020 budget bill with report language to pressure the FCC to hold a public auction of spectrum on the 3.7-4.2 GHz C band. The measure, which the Financial Services Subcommittee cleared Tuesday, would allocate $339 million to the FCC and its Office of Inspector General and $312.3 million to the FTC (see 1909170060). The House-passed equivalent (HR-3351) allocated the FCC the same funding level but gave the FTC $349.7 million -- $37 million more than Senate Appropriations proposes (see 1906260081).

The Trump administration's “overreliance on unilateral tariff increases to address a wide range of policy problems is upsetting the historic balance between Congressional and Executive powers,” said CTA, the National Retail Federation and 20 other trade associations in a letter Wednesday to the House Ways and Means and Senate Finance Committee leadership. The groups formed the Tariff Reform Coalition, “dedicated to ensuring clearer guidelines and greater Congressional oversight with respect to Presidential use of tariff authority,” they said. Their objective is to work with Congress “to pass appropriate tariff reform legislation as soon as possible,” they said. “There are valid reasons for Congress to have delegated significant authority to the President in order to address unfair trade practices and liberalize world trade.” But the constitution clearly gives Congress “the power to regulate foreign trade and to specify the parameters of its delegated authority in the area of tariffs,” they said. Congress is entitled “by statute and custom to expect that meaningful consultations between the two branches will occur prior to raising tariffs, rather than after the fact or not at all,” they said. It’s critical “to weigh the downside effects on American manufacturers, farmers and ranchers, exporters and consumers,” they said. Many of the administration’s Section 301 tariff actions the past two years “have had significant collateral effects on domestic prices and have led to extensive retaliation against our exports,” they said. “We do not believe Congress was sufficiently apprised of these effects. Potential further harm from measures currently under consideration by the Administration and the resulting retaliation by trading partners could have even more sweeping effects throughout the economy.” They urged the committees “to consider a robust congressional review of this policy shift.” The White House and the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative didn't comment.

Twenty-three trade associations, led by the National Foreign Trade Council, have sent a letter to the leaders of the House and Senate committees with trade jurisdiction, asking them to hold public hearings on tariffs proposed by President Donald Trump, and telling them the Tariff Reform Coalition wants to "work with you to pass appropriate tariff reform legislation as soon as possible."

The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative issued three new sets of product exclusions from the 25 percent Section 301 tariffs on goods from China. The exclusions include products from the first three lists of Section 301 goods. The new exclusions from the first tranche include "310 specially prepared product descriptions" and cover 724 separate requests, according to the notice. The second tranche exclusions include 89 product descriptions and covers 400 requests, while the third tranche exclusions include 38 product descriptions that cover 46 exclusion requests, the agency said.

The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative is publishing three new sets of product exclusions from the 25 percent Section 301 tariffs on goods from China (see 1909180004). The product exclusions apply retroactively to when each tranche initially took effect. That was July 6, 2018, for the first tranche, Aug. 23, 2018, for the second tranche and Sept. 24, 2018, for the third tranche. The notice for the third tranche also includes "technical amendments" to lists three and four of the Section 301 tariffs that appear to end double counting of Section 301 tariffs on goods tariffed at a rate that comes from another subheading.

S&P Global Ratings is “fairly confident” that tech manufacturers Flex and Jabil “could manage their metrics to preserve” their current “BBB-“ credit ratings if the List 4 Section 301 tariffs stay at 15 percent, said the financial analytics firm Friday. But in a 30 percent tariff “scenario,” as the first three tariff rounds are scheduled to rise to on Oct. 15, the potential EBITDA declines “could prove to be too severe” for either company to avoid a ratings downgrade, said S&P. Before any downgrade, “we would consider each company's tariff mitigation and balance sheet management strategies,” it said. “If we believed credit metrics were likely to exceed our downgrade thresholds over a 24-month period, we could lower the ratings.” It estimates goods generating 6-9 percent of Flex's revenue and 12-17 percent of Jabil's sales will have exposure to the four rounds of tariffs, it said. “Neither company discloses these figures so we estimated them based on a review of revenue by geography for each of the customers they name in their annual reports,” it said. Jabil’s largest customer, Apple, draws 37 percent of its revenue from U.S. sales, it said. For Flex, the largest customer is Ford, which gets 61 percent of revenue from the U.S., it said. In fiscal 2019 ending March 31, 25 percent of Flex revenue came from manufacturing operations in China, it said. It estimates Jabil derives 40-50 percent of revenue from Chinese production, it said. Flex and Jabil didn’t comment Monday.

International Trade Today is providing readers with some of the top stories for Sept. 9-13 in case they were missed.

Most of the Democratic contenders who weighed in with a China opinion during Thursday’s presidential debate said President Donald Trump’s Section 301 tariffs policy harm American families, but backed the administration’s goals of curbing China’s alleged IP theft and forced technology transfer. The U.S. either needs to make trade policy, “or China’s going to make the rules of the road,” said Former Vice President Joe Biden, typifying the others.

S&P Global Ratings is “fairly confident” that tech manufacturers Flex and Jabil “could manage their metrics to preserve” their current “BBB-“ ratings if the List 4 Section 301 tariffs stay at 15 percent, the financial analytics firm said Sept. 13. But in a 30 percent tariff “scenario,” as the first three tariff rounds are scheduled to rise to Oct. 15, the potential EBITDA declines “could prove to be too severe” for either company to avoid a ratings downgrade, S&P said. "Flex and Jabil could be the canaries in the coal mine when it comes to the effects of another round of tariffs on the technology hardware sector," S&P said in a news release. Before any downgrade, “we would consider each company's tariff mitigation and balance sheet management strategies,” it said. “If we believed credit metrics were likely to exceed our downgrade thresholds over a 24 month period, we could lower the ratings.” It estimates that goods representing 6 percent to 9 percent of Flex's revenues and 12 percent to 17 percent of Jabil's sales will have exposure to the four rounds of tariffs, it said. “Neither company discloses these figures so we estimated them based on a review of revenue by geography for each of the customers they name in their annual reports,” it said. Jabil’s largest customer, Apple, draws 37 percent of its revenue from U.S. sales, it said. For Flex, the largest customer is Ford, which draws 61 percent of revenue from the U.S., it said. In fiscal 2019 ended March 31, 25 percent of Flex revenue came from manufacturing operations in China, it said. It estimates that Jabil derives 40 percent to 50 percent of its revenue from Chinese production, it said. Flex and Jabil didn’t comment.